Delicious Dishes.

Last Friday night I made Chef Chloe Coscarelli's panang curry with tofu. It required a lot of chopping but it was so worth it! I can't recommend this recipe enough. I added red and yellow bell peppers and green beans to her recipe. I also pan fried the tofu before adding it in. It was like dining at a Thai restaurant without having to leave the house!

Weekend!

We had such a fantastic weekend! One of my friends from college came to visit from Texas. It was full of laughs, memory making and new adventures. I love the friends that you can see after much time has passed and it feels like you just saw them yesterday. In the very best way possible, I felt like a tourist in my own city this weekend. I need to get out and explore more often!

We started with a visit to the new Nationals baseball stadium to see them take on the Giants.

We got to see Strasburg pitch and purchased tickets for when the Nationals play the Phillies in a few weeks (I can't wait--the Phillies are my team!!)

On Saturday we headed to the Tim McGraw concert!

You can see why this weekend was affectionately dubbed "Big Beer Weekend 2010".

Jesse preferred a giant plastic guitar that was half margarita and half strawberry daiquiri.

On Sunday we went over to the National Harbor for lunch at Rosa Mexicano and some wandering.

This is where they moved The Awakening sculpture.

Much to my very excited surprise, they opened an entire store dedicated to peeps here! It's a shrine to the ooey-gooey sugar-coated marshmallow goodness.

Love me some peeps!

When we got home, Jesse and I watched my beloved Spanish team beat the Netherlands in the World Cup Finals (Viva la Furia Roja!), made some dinner and watched Burma VJ. So many good times were had this weekend! Hope you enjoyed your weekend too!

Money Talk Course

On Wednesday night, I started a course called "Money Talk: A Financial Guide for Women" that is being offered by my county. For $20 (plus $5 extra to bring your significant other), you get five two-hour weekly sessions on all things finances taught by a financial counselor, as well as one session taught by a accountant/attorney. They even included handouts and the book in the cost of the course. The topics of the sessions will be: financial basics, investing basics, investing for retirement, insurance basics and planning for future life events. As a bonus, it's held at the local library, so I can check out a ton of books on the nights I am there and stop buying them!

Since Jesse and I are both at the beginning of our professional lives and just moved in together, I thought it would be a great idea for us to both attend. We can use it as a way to get ourselves financially together individually, but also set goals together and talk through money stuff. I've read a lot of books on finances, including several by Suze Orman, On My Own Two Feet and Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money With Your Honey by Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar, and a few others. However, the benefit of having a live teacher to ask questions, as well as a roomful of people interacting and telling anecdotes, is above and beyond anything I have gotten out of those books.

In the first class we started with looking at how we view money at the moment. She had us fill out a "Money Coat of Arms" with four sections plus a middle section for a money motto. It was admittedly a little cheesy but the content got me thinking a lot:

One thing I do well with money: Pay bills on time and always more than the minimum

One thing I don't do well with money: Budget! Save! (Okay, that's two.)

One way that I enjoy spending money: On hobbies, like yoga, reading, crochet and cooking

One way that I have a hard time spending money: On responsible adult items I hate to have to fork out cash for because it makes me resentful, like dental procedures and eye glasses.

My money motto: I had a hard time with this one. Currently, or at least the last few years, it seems like it was "Spend like you're dying". Now it's more like "Be responsible and cautious but don't forget to live."

Some members of the class shared their responses. I was surprised to hear so many women say that they have a hard time spending money on themselves. That is SO NOT my problem! We also talked about creating a budget (she calls it a "spending plan" since the b-word turns so many people off!), setting SMART short-term (1-3 years), intermediate term (3-10 years) and long-term (10+ years) financial goals, credit card basics, ways to increase your cash flow and decrease expenses, organizing your financial paperwork and more.

This course fits in nicely with my long-lost but about to be revived "Sweat and Save" plan. The only thing I did for that in 2010 on the save part was to pay off my credit cards (they have since seen a little damage but nothing that can't be paid off again quickly). Hopefully this interests at least a few of you. I plan to blog about the remaining four sessions as well. If you live in the Arlington, VA area, I highly recommend you check this course out! Contact me for more information.

Revelry Review: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

On the train ride back from New Jersey this past weekend, I started and finished The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. I've seen this novel reviewed everywhere--magazines, blogs, newspapers, etc--so I was anxious to read it.

The story revolves around the life of Rose, who has an unusual skill: she can taste emotions in her food. This talent first develops when she is nine years old and is eating her mother's lemon cake, which she says tastes like absence and hunger. At first Rose tries to get rid of this ability by avoiding eating anything that is not pre-packaged and made by a machine. The story follows about 10 years of Rose's life and as she grows up, she learns to use the talent to her advantage. Along the way the reader learns about Rose's family through her peculiar skill.

Steeped in magical realism, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake lets the reader into the ins and outs of a family through food. A sense of loneliness and disconnect seems to pervade Bender's writing. While I wasn't completely blown away by this one, I continue to think about the book's lonely, quiet moments long after reading the last page.

New Jersey

I spent the long 4th of July weekend in NJ with my family, friends and Jesse. For the first few days I couldn't stop checking out the sunsets in my Mom's backyard. City living can make you forget how beautiful nature can be.

My Mom and I did a little cooking, a little eating, a little wine drinking and a lot of catching up. I took this picture after saying, "Hey, Mom...pose for my blog!" and she responded, "How do I get to a blog?" Ha. Also? Please ignore the fact that she is already in her pajamas and has crazy lady hair.

This is the Ocean City beach. So, so pretty but so, so full of tourists. I miss this place a lot when I am not there.

Hanging out on the boardwalk for a bit. We spent our July 4th seeing two movies at the only drive-in movie theater left in NJ! I had never been to one but it was SO much fun! Hope you all had a great holiday too!

Weekend!

This past weekend was Jesse's birthday! I made some cupcakes exactly as he requested: vegan vanilla cupcakes filled with butterscotch pudding topped with vegan vanilla icing and shredded coconut. I used the basic vanilla cupcake recipe and basic buttercream recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and it was delicious!

The birthday boy with one of his presents: a bike jersey to match his bike!

I HATE chili but Jesse would eat it for every meal if he could, so we went to Hard Times Cafe so he could have some vegetarian chili over tater tots (which he said was the best ever) and beer.

We ended the night with a Wii competition with some friends at our place. It was a great and relaxing weekend!

Revelry Review: Forks over Knives

Last night Jesse and I attended an advance screening of the new documentary, "Forks Over Knives", here in DC. A Q&A session followed the screening with Dr. Neal Barnard of PCRM, Dr. Michael Greger, Gene Bauer from Farm Sanctuary and Bruce Friedrich from PETA.

The film follows the career trajectories of Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, who are advocates of using a plant-based diet to halt and even reverse the so-called "diseases of affluence": heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. It also follows the experiences of several people (including the director!) who suffered from these problems and were following a plant-based diet in an effort to change their lives. It was like seeing The China Study brought into visual form. I wanted to show it to every member of my family that suffers from these health problems.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, the Q&A portion was cut a bit short (let's be honest--I could listen to that group talk all day!). However, it did raise interesting questions, such as should we be using the term "plant-based diet" or "vegan" and what are the implications of each. I find this discussion fascinating. On the one hand, saying "I eat a plant-based diet" seems a lot more palatable to some people, but using "vegan" more often might help to take some of the negative stereotypes out of the word. This led Jesse and I to a discussion about eating mostly plants for the animals versus for health (or both or a host of other reasons) and how those groups of people are really at a disconnect some of the time. I think this movie, about the health benefits, seems fit for a different audience than say, "Earthlings", even if they get at the same essential end result.

Someone also asked about educating their current doctor or if they should change doctors if they received push back on this issue. Dr. Barnard's suggestion, which surpised me a bit, was to continue with your regular doctor, as long as they have good diagnostic capabilities, but follow a plant-based diet and hopefully the changes that brings will show your doctor how useful it can be.

The film is expected to be released into theaters in the fall and available for purchase on DVD later this year or early in 2011. I am hoping it reaches a very wide audience because the impact could be huge.

Inspiration.

A collection of recent posts from around the web that have caught my attention lately:

-The Oprah Magazine's guide to great collections of short stories

-These tips for shopping at the farmers' market

-A how-to for more creative discipline--I love the idea of using the word devotion instead of discipline!

-This post from City Life Eats on eating while traveling for those of us with special diets or food allergies

-Tulips and Tea's Analiese guest posted about her style statement, organic creative, on the Style Statement blog

-A profile of Chef Chloe, who won the Food Network's cupcake challenge with her amazing vegan cupcakes! Check out some of her recipes here and here.

-This New York Times article about how the road to adulthood has been getting increasingly longer

-This column by the ever-so-fabulous Jen Lancaster on why New Jersey is the new black (Yay for my home state!)

{Photo credit: cupcakes2}

Revelry Review: One Amazing Thing

South Asian Author Challenge, Book 1/5: One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

This is the story of random strangers trapped in the Indian consulate in an unnamed city in the U.S after an earthquake. As the conditions worsen (lack of food, air, electricity, etc.), the strangers each take turns telling their stories, their "one amazing thing" that proves that life is a gift, to each other in case they do not make it out alive. This novel requires some suspension of belief, as the characters spend more time telling their stories than trying to escape. However, in the wake of tragedies like those that happened this year in Haiti and Chile, it raises both hard questions and good points about the miracle of simply being alive.

I confess that Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is one of my all-time favorite writers. She was a gateway drug of sorts for me into what became an all-out obsession with South Asian writers. Her prose can be heartbreakingly beautiful. However, I don't recommend that you start with this one if you want to give her a try. Check out The Mistress of Spices or Sister of My Heart. While One Amazing Thing was not my favorite of her books, so far she hasn't failed me yet!

Reading Challenge.

I am so excited to be participating in the South Asian Author Challenge that is being hosted by S. Krishna's Books! Back in college I was an English major. I signed up for a Gender and Literature course, not knowing it was themed: Gender Issues in Postcolonial Literature. I am fairly certain that course--the professor, the other students, the literature we read--profoundly changed me. It was heavily focused on India, since that is where the professor is from, but we touched on other areas. It was like traveling the world without the expensive plane ticket. I discovered the lush, beautiful prose of South Asian writers and could not get enough. Now some of my favorite writers include Salman Rushdie, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, Vikram Seth, Vikram Chandra, Arundhati Roy, etc. I've pledged to read five books written by South Asian authors by the end of the year. I am sure I will far exceed those five, but I wanted to make sure I met my pledge. I will blog about what I read here. Interested in joining the challenge? It's not too late! Follow the link or click on the image above!